Saturday, January 5, 2019

My Review Of "Doom Room"

"Doom Room" is directed by Jon Keeyes and stars Debbie Rochon, Matthew Tompkins, Johanna Stanton, Hayden Tweedie and Nicholas Ball. The film is an allegorical, mind-bending, dark fairytale of sorts. Originally it was released as 2013's "Nightmare Box".A woman wakes up locked in a small room with no memory of how she arrived there. Unable to escape, and tormented by a series of paranormal entities, she must uncover the riddle of who she is and how she got here.Inspired in part by a true story, a young lady was held captive in a slave chest under a sadistic couple's bed for seven years, "Doom Room" is a highly imaginative dark fairytale told stylistically as a sequence of nightmares and dreamscapes. Sometimes confusing, and incoherent the scenes play out like broken episodes of a disturbed thought. Othertimes the screen feels more like whimsical musings from some Hell cast. The cast give good character. Expressive, impactful creatures often melodramatic and 100% theatrical. There are moments that the acting breaks scene cohesion, slipping slightly, but for the most part everyone was cream. I kept finding my mind flickering inspirations of Alice, not as she was in Wonderland, but as she truly was in the sanitarium. The film I compare it most to is "Red Kingdom Rising" from Navin Dev. The special effects and atmosphere is a cross between early 2000's grindhouse and German experimental arthouse. At to cinematography and sequencing begging of Scandinavian dark metal concept and "Doom Room" is truly creative and ambitious for a low budget indie horror. There is blood and a hint of gore, all visceral, but this isn't some celebratory torture porn anthem. It is at it's core about a girl locked in a box and dealing with a fight or flight psychological crossroads thing. Similar films have come out and it is a tricky style of storytelling to get right, but "Doom Room" has more good going for it than bad. Definitely check it out. (3.5/5)